


The Language of Flowers

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [53]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Flowers, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, POV Loki (Marvel), Pre-Relationship, Spring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:22:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24244228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Loki goes for a walk on the grounds of the Compound and stumbles across you working in your garden.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [53]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 14
Kudos: 235





	The Language of Flowers

On some level, Loki knew that you had a garden somewhere. Everyone in the compound did. You’d often disappear for hours at a time, only to reappear later covered in dirt and smelling like fresh air. Every so often, you would come in with a basket full of produce and your eyes shining with pride. When you did, you’d bustle around the kitchen, washing and chopping and cooking with your vegetables, and when one of the others inevitably complimented you on the result, you always thanked them quietly even though you looked ready to burst with happiness.

Perhaps he paid a little more attention to you than he should.

Something about you interested him. He generally tried not to get too invested in the Midgardians. Most of them wanted him dead. He didn’t blame them, exactly, but it did make it difficult to care much about befriending them. And even if he did, why? You all died so quickly compared to him. What was the point of making friends with any of you, letting himself care about any of you, only to have to watch you die? He had plenty enough to deal with, thanks.

You didn’t appear to want him dead. To be honest, you rarely appeared to notice him at all. He rather liked the fact that he could be in a room with you and not feel pressed to speak to you. There was a stillness about you that seemed rare in Midgardians. Granted, he was normally a fan of whirling chaos, but he preferred to be the source rather than the target. But it wasn’t that you ignored him. You acknowledged him with your quiet smile and a quick nod—it always reminded him of nobility in Asgard, who didn’t quite need to bow at him, but did greet him with a slight bow of their head. Sometimes you spoke to him as well. But the difference was that you truly seemed to listen. Whether you were asking for his thoughts on something or merely asking how he was doing, he was always struck by how earnestly you studied his face and how thoughtfully you responded to whatever it was that he said to you.

In any case, he certainly did _not_ set out to look for your garden. It was a beautiful day, for Midgard, and he did not relish the idea of keeping himself locked inside for once. So he’d gone out after very purposely not looking for you anywhere inside. He wandered the grounds. The land surrounding the compound was almost respectable. Of course Stark wanted privacy, and the next best way to get it, after extremely high-tech security systems, was, of course, a lot of open space. He strolled along without any destination in mind. Certainly, _you_ were not on his mind either. He did _not_ take the time to call up the image of your face, or the way you chewed on your lip when you were thinking or reading, or the way you danced around the kitchen when you thought no one was looking. 

He stumbled across some flowers first. Wildflowers were not out of the ordinary for the compound—he often saw tiny purple and yellow flowers growing randomly in the grass when he ventured outdoors. But these flowers were different. They were golden-yellow, some with tints of orange in their petals, and they had very clearly been deliberately planted. Something about them drew his eye up, further along, and he saw a patch of larger plants. And you.

Your back was to him as you tended to another plant. It was hard to see exactly what you were doing, but it appeared that you were caressing its leaves. He gave in to his curiosity and crept a bit closer, careful not to make any noises and alert you to his presence. 

“I don’t know who’s done this to you, baby, but I will find them.” Your voice was quiet, but he could hear rage burning beneath your words. That surprised him a bit, coming from you. “I will find them, and I will smash them. I’ll smear their guts onto the stones here and leave them there as a warning to the others.”

The odd juxtaposition between the quiet way you were speaking and the wrath in the words themselves made Loki smile to himself. You could be a formidable opponent. He’d seen you train with Romanoff and she rarely appeared to be holding herself back. 

“Who is it that you’re talking to?” He knew he’d startle you so he kept his voice low to try to temper the panic. Sure enough, you sucked in a gasp and rose to your feet, spinning to face him at the same time. Your hands were cocked back in a defensive position. He took a moment to appreciate your form before holding his hands up to show that he meant no harm.

With a self-conscious laugh, you looked away from him and back towards the plant. You gestured vaguely at it. “Something’s eating my tomato plant.”

He felt his smile grow wider. “And so you vow revenge.”

You rubbed the back of your neck for a moment and then turned back towards the plant, ducking down again to take another look at it. He knew you were using it as an excuse not to look at him, but maybe he appreciated the way you squirmed. 

“I know it’s part of life and gardening and all of that, but these plants are like my _babies_. They’re here to feed _us_ , not nasty little pests with _nothing better to do_.” You delivered the last part of that sentence with an adorable snarl, clearly still looking for the culprit. 

“You’ve done a lot of work out here.” Maybe he was a little desperate to move on, to distract himself from the fact that he’d just thought the word ‘adorable’ to describe you. “It looks good.” That was the right thing to say. He didn’t have to look at you to know the pleasure that would slide over your face at the compliment. He took a few steps away, wandering a bit further so he could look at your plants. They were lush and brilliantly green. He didn’t quite know enough about Midgardian crops to be able to identify them by sight, but he could appreciate them nonetheless.

“Thank you. Rabbits or something have eaten most of my bean plants twice already, but third time’s the charm.” He saw you nod towards a series of wooden frames a little way away, with tiny green tendrils starting to wind up around them. “My mom always said that marigolds were supposed to keep them out, but I think that was just an old wives’ tale.” 

“Surely Stark could create something for you using technology,” Loki mused. “A motion-activated weapons system or something?” 

You laughed a bit louder at that, and Loki had to ignore the rush of warmth that sped through him at knowing he’d been the one to make you laugh like that. “But then I’d have to deal with the dead bunnies.”

He chose not to mention your previous threat against the tomato-pest, and instead bent down to examine some alien-looking purple bulbs with stems coming off of them like tentacles. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen something like this here, and he was oddly fascinated. You were quiet for a while, the only sign of your presence the soft rustling of leaves and crunching of gravel beneath your feet. He felt, more than heard, you come up behind him to see what he was looking at.

“That’s kohlrabi. It’s like a turnip? I don’t really know what to do with it, but I thought it looked cool so I wanted to grow it.” 

“And so you did.” He couldn’t keep the admiration out of his voice. How was it that he was learning more about you out here in your garden than he ever had inside? He felt guilty for a moment, at the realization that he’d only ever thought of you in relation to himself, but he liked this side of you too. 

“I have flowers, too! Can I show you my flowers?” Somehow, it seemed you were even prouder of that fact than this successful vegetable garden. He rose to his feet and brushed his hands on his legs, and then nodded. Your eyes flashed with happy pride and you grabbed his arm to pull him along with you. That took him aback—you’d never sought to touch him before—but he found that he...didn’t _dislike_ the feeling of your hand on him. 

You pulled him through your first garden and into a little circular nook a bit farther off. It looked to be surrounded by hedges, or perhaps rose bushes, and when you positioned yourself in the center of all the blooms and smiled at him, he couldn’t help but compare you to a dryad from Midgardian myths. This place smelled sweet, fresh, with the occasional refreshing sharp notes cutting through the air. You touched each of your plants so gently and told him their names in a reverent tone. He was paying more attention to you than to the things you were saying. He liked the way your fingers curled around and beneath the blooms and leaves. These plants were just as lush and brilliant as your vegetables were, and he did allow himself several (guilty) moments to appreciate the way the dark greenery complemented your skin. 

When you’d completed the loop around your flowers, you let your fingers hover over a sprig of tiny, brilliantly-blue flowers for a moment. Decisively, you plucked it, and then reached up to tuck it behind his ear. He was startled by your movements, but did not pull away. When you were finished, you smiled up at him as sweetly as though he himself were one of your plants. “There. You’re beautiful.”

He did _not_ like the idea of a Midgardian making him blush, but he felt his cheeks grow warm anyway and had to pull his eyes away from you. “How are you going to keep your garden if you keep picking all the flowers?” He hated how gruff he sounded. As open as you were right now, and as sweet, he knew he shouldn’t be speaking to you like that. 

But if you were at all put-off by him, you didn’t show it. You just laughed again, softly this time, and reached out to caress his arm. “They’re meant to be shared. I didn’t grow them just to watch them wither and die on the ground.” You let your arm drop, then, and folded both of your hands behind you, like maybe you were embarrassed. He was struck with the sudden urge to take you into his arms, but he resisted. “I planted those because I thought they’d look nice in your hair. And I was right. So. Hah.”

Emboldened by some unknown force, he stepped away, but only as far as another patch of your flowers. He ducked down, but stole a glance at you first, as though asking permission. You just nodded with that same quiet smile. He plucked a flower of his own and then came to stand before you once more. He felt uncharacteristically awkward as he reached up to tuck it behind your ear, and strangely clumsy, but he managed without making a fool of himself. You just continued to smile at him.

He found that he rather liked your garden.


End file.
